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New Bill Would Ban Public NOAA Weather Data
ckokotay writes "Here we go again. Apparently for-pay weather companies (specifically Accuweather) have lobbied Senator Rick Santorum to introduce a bill to ban the National Weather Service from 'competing.' The NOAA just made data available for free on the internet in XML format. Essentially, that means no more free data, and the possible elimination of the NOAA web presence all together. Nothing like being able to buy off a clueless Senator - lets hope the rest do not fall in line, as I for one, do not like to pay for my information twice." This debate picks up where the last one left off. According to the article, the bill's biggest critics are complaining of the bill's vague wording which makes it unclear what exactly is being banned.
Once the bill motors through the Senate and House, and has the signature of the prez (Hey, the GOP loves private businesses, right?) I'll be able to direct when and where war actually takes place.
This should undoubtably improve my popularity gasp and maybe get me a gulp date with that cutie gosh I've had my eye on for a while!
Ok, Kim's check bounced, you can invade now.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
... just as soon as they build their own space launch facilities.
If I'm not allowed to see the benefits of what my tax dollars are paying for, than neither should they. That means no more access to NOAA satellites and no more help paying for Kennedy Space Center and the heavy-lift rockets they need for their geosynchronus launches.
I'm feeling generous, I'll let taxpayer-funded NORAD tell them if and when Something Bad is about to happen to their satellites, but beyond that...
Without my money going to NOAA, these for-pay services would still be stuck with nothing but ground-based radar, to the point where I doubt they'd even spring to pay for off-shore buoys (where'd the profit be?). And that means things like not being able to see hurricanes until it's too late.
They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways, but I'm sure they'll get it anyway. Thanks, Congress!
In response to:
Barry Myers, AccuWeather's executive vice president, said the bill would improve public safety by making the weather service devote its efforts to hurricanes, tsunamis and other dangers, rather than duplicating products already available from the private sector.
Ed Johnson, the weather service's director of strategic planning and policy, said:
"If someone claims that our core mission is just warning the public of hazardous conditions, that's really impossible unless we forecast the weather all the time. You don't just plug in your clock when you want to know what time it is."
And then this gem from Accuweather:
Myers argued that nearly all consumers get their weather information for free through commercial providers, including the news media, so there's little reason for the federal agency to duplicate their efforts.
"Do you really need that from the NOAA Web site?" he asked.
Um, gee, if everyone already doesn't get their weather information from the National Weather Service, then what the fuck are they so worried about? Incidentally, the stated mission of the National Weather Service is:
The National Weather Service (NWS) provides weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings for the United States, its territories, adjacent waters and ocean areas, for the protection of life and property and the enhancement of the national economy. NWS data and products form a national information database and infrastructure which can be used by other governmental agencies, the private sector, the public, and the global community.
Clear, timely, comprehensive, accurate - and now open - weather forecasts are critical for many, many sectors of public and private society. The new, open formats of weather data also make its integration into myriad other services and tools trivial. It's only good for the public. I don't think Sen. Santorum realizes how critical the NWS's weather, climate, and marine data is to so many sectors of US society.
The National Weather Service is funded for this mission, among others, by the taxpayers of the United States.
I hope Rick Santorum realizes that in a world where this bill passes, there should also be a corresponding reduction of funding to the NWS, in addition to a wholesale change of its mission. In fact, what would its mission be?
The best part of all of this is that in order for the NWS to effectively be able to gather the necessary data to still predict and warn against life- and property-threatening dangers, it still has to do almost all of the continuing data collection it does now. Removing the public access to this does absolutely nothing for anyone.
Except for-profit weather forecasting providers like Accuweather, of course.
For now, at least, Johnson of the NWS notes his agency is expanding its online offerings to serve the public.
Remember, too, that a "bill" is just that. Time to remind your elected officials of what you think...
here
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
the Weather Channel is asking cable companies to add a surcharge based on the number of windows in a subscriber's household, to recoup lost revenues due to subscriber's looking outside to see what the weather is like...
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
If accuweather is so concerned about the national weather service undermining private companies, this bill should also forbid the national weather service from providing their data to accuweather itself. By providing all this data to accuweather, they are undercutting the ability of private comapnies to set up their own weather monitoring instruments and SELL the data to accuweather.
Dad gummit. I PAID for NOAA....with my TAXES. I have EVERY right under FOIA to all that data. The nly reason this is being brought up is the Accuweathers, the DTN's and to a lesser extent, the Weather Channels of the world.
Gorkman
Clearly you're being rhetorical, but I'll fire off a response anyway:
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The Congressional part especially has a lot of merit, since I'm sure Congress would prefer that we not find out about stuff like this except as duly authorized sources see fit to pass it along.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Santorum (n.)
1. That frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.
2. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA)
Accuweather is headquartered in Pennsylvania. And Santorum is a senator from PA. I mean, come on, what are the odds of that? ;)
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Here's the text of S. 786. Thankfully, no co-sponsors yet. Here's hoping that most Congresspeople see this bill for what it is - lunacy.
I'm a developer for a small weather software company and we rely on the NWS for a lot of information (forecasts, etc.) for one our products[/shameless plug]. If this becomes law, our software won't work anymore. 2 people cannot write 7 day forecasts for every county in the USA.
The government should just get out of the information business. The free market is the best way to ensure that we get the most unbiased information.
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Aviators everywhere depend on NOAA for weather all the time and AOPA will never let this bill get passed. AOPA has a long history of protecting the citizens from stupid laws like this so I'm not worried at all.
You should definitely check out the official spin on this:
Santorum Proposes to Modernize National Weather Service to Better Serve Public
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Just so everyone understands, we here at NOAA provide many other products and services that have nothing to do with the National Weather Service. Check out noaa.gov to see the eight major areas of work, of which weather is just one. :)
Ewww! santorum..
Starsucks
The next logical step is simply to privatize the Senate, and ban competing government organizations.
After all, private lobbyists ALREADY write legislation, conduct research and collect money.
What do we need a government-run Senate for?
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
It's misleading that the article suggests NOAA just scrapped a policy that stated what the National Weather Service's role would be in relation to private industry. A law had been in effect defining these roles, but the law had expired. In absence of such regulation, NOAA found an applicable OMB requiring them to disseminate the data in an open format. NOAA has made an effort to comply with the regulation and follow the law.
It is absolutely false that the NWS spends lots of time producing forecasts of warm and sunny. This is nothing short of a lie. Forecasts are issued twice daily in most situations. It will still be necessary for the NWS to produce a forecast in all cases because even if it's warm and sunny today and tomorrow, it's very useful for example to monitor and be aware of a storm system that will have an impact a few days out. Forecasts are produced more often or are updated when a change in the weather is expected, such as showers and thunderstorms. This is referred to as nowcasting and is a necessary function of the NWS. While I can't cite this as a fact, I would expect a much greater amount of time is spent nowcasting or forecasting significant weather than is spent producing these forecasts of warm and sunny.
The National Hurricane Center disseminates information about tropical cyclones and is not disseminating these forecasts of warm and sunny that the private industry suggests NOAA spends too much time doing. The NHC has an extremely important function and is working to improve its products for the purpose of providing better alerts to the general public about approaching threats. To suggest the NHC is hampered by such duties as producing warm and sunny forecasts is a lie.
Furthermore, it is extremely important that accurate weather data be available to emergency managers and to weather spotters. These are important beneficiaries of data such as radar data and nowcasts produced by the NWS and the Storm Prediction Center. While emergency managers will likely pay the fee and get access to data provided by private industry, it is less likely that spotters, which are the general public, will be willing to pay. Effectively, this could cripple an important means of detecting severe weather. I guarantee that without accurate radar data, I'm not going to try to spot a tornado and relay the information in; it's just too dangerous.
I am a meteorologist and I have also heard the opinions of many other meteorologists that I attend school with. The consensus about companies such as the Weather Channel is that they do not provide accurate timely data. Their on-air personalities generally have little knowledge of meteorology. They operate their own forecast model which my fellow meteorologists do not believe produces quality and reasonably accurate solutions. And I've heard that many of the actual meteorologists at the Weather Channel lost their jobs. Anyone who's watched their broadcasts probably has noticed their tendencies to focus on the East and West Coasts even when the middle of the country is receiving severe weather. They hardly do a reliable job of disseminating information about potentially dangerous weather to the public. Is this really who we want in charge of forecasting and providing information to the public?
I find this bill to be based around lies and to have the ability to be extremely harmful to the ability to detect severe weather. The Senate should not approve this bill.
It needs to be said.
Public tax money pays for this weather data to be collected. The public has the RIGHT to access this information, because they've already PAID FOR IT.
If a private company can not survive doing "value-add" with this free information, then that company does not deserve to exist. Plain and simple. You can't ban that information from being free and then charge people for it!
There are only two ways to procede with this problem. Either the government stops spending tax money recording the weather information, leaving the corporations to set up and maintain their own weather stations, or the entire board of directors of AccuWeather is drawn and quartered. Either one is fine with me.
As an ex-employee of AccuWeather, I'm really not surprised to see this. Joel Myers is a corrupt tyrant. Slimeball Pennsylvania politicians were always coming into the building to meet with him. There's a picture hanging in the hallway of Myers shaking hands with Bill Clinton. I'm not surprised he has Santorum in his pocket now.
During my years at AccuWeather, there seemed to be only two things Joel Myers tried to accomplish - to stop NOAA, and to prevent the employees from creating a union. Joel Myers treats his employees like slave labor. He entices young meteorology students from Penn State into signing contracts with them - then works them rediciously long hours without compensation. If you want to quit, they will sick their horde of corporate lawyers on you quicker than you can bat an eyelash. Their lawyers write up big complicated contracts with their customers, which happen to have automatic renewal clauses if AccuWeather is not notified by certified mail within 60 days of the end of the contract. This is the way they run their business. They don't give a shit about their employees, customers, or the general welfare of American citizens who support NOAA with their tax money.
Anyone in Happy Valley reading this, avoid working at this place like the plague!
By the way, for those of you who don't know Rick Santorum, you may remember him from a few years ago when he made national headlines by comparing homesexuality to incest and beastiality.
Several years ago, before Rick Santorum was a big shot politician, I was living in Pittsburgh and he was running for some local office, going door to door trying to get support. I was in middle school at the time, in the yard playing with my dog. She saw Santorum coming and didn't like him at all.. she ran to him, started barking and growling. I guess she was a good judge of character.